Symbiosis
by Buckshot
Summary: Begins with the end of Mass Effect 3. Effects of Synthesis upon the galaxy... and the characters you know and love! Shakarian and Joker/EDI. Rated M for language, gore, and potential sexy content. Reviews and reads are very much appreciated. Thanks!
1. Chapter 1: Destroy

**Chapter 1. Destroy. **

She thought about choosing destruction. It was her first instinct, and Shepard knew that her first instincts were usually pretty spot on. They had served her millions of times in combat, life, and general galaxy saving duties that she seemed to have to do every single bloody day. But, as she walked towards the levers, EDI's face came into her mind unbidden. Joker's smile. The change in him since he had fallen for her. Images of them played across her mind, memories, movies she knew well. Then followed Legion. Legion, her brave soldier, her friend, her biggest fan. Her martyr. On seeing his face, face? Was it a face? Did geth have faces? His visage, then, she stopped and nearly fell forward. Her right knee was clearly bent slightly in the wrong direction, and the accompanying pinch of tendons stifled between broken bones sent shivers up her spine. At least three of her ribs were broken, and one of those was a floater threatening to pierce her skin. Not the first time but, fuck, it was always terrible. Her left foot was completely useless, and she balanced on the outside of it so that she could stand up and speak to this child-image, this haunter of her nightmares, this fucking demon, this person who had given her this choice. Why her? Why had it always been her? Commander Shepard. She knew she could handle it but, christ and goddamnit. Why.

In that moment she knew what she had to do. The course of her gimpy stumble changed towards synthesis. Though the idea of the reapers surviving in any capacity hurt everything she was made of, she knew that it was the right thing to do. These reapers really thought that they were right. They thought that they were saving the galaxy. And lord knows the geth and EDI, EDI! They didn't deserve to die. Not that Shepard did either. But she'd had a great run. Her face felt wet. A hand came up to touch it and came away a deep red, after scratching her across the forehead in what already felt like an open wound. Huh. That's not where fingers are supposed to be. That's not how many fingers there are supposed to be either. Damnit. Keep walking.

Garrus. Oh, god. Garrus. What was Garrus going to do. He was strong, he was going to be okay, he didn't need her that much… who was she kidding? He was going to be destroyed. Could she sacrifice that? Pause. Stop. Garrus, her prince. Her archangel. Her vigilante. Her fucking stubborn, adorable man. Her reason to come back from this station. Her dream of sitting on a tropical beach. Jesus, a margarita sounded amazing right now. Cool. Salty. Alcohol? Really? Right now? When the fate of the universe is at stake? The pool of blood on the floor was starting to seep in through her boots, and they were the best boots. She was Commander Shepard. The cuts on her face started to sting, and she screamed with an agony she knew was in her somewhere, but she could never express. The salt. From her eyes, she was crying, wasn't she? Giving up her life for the galaxy was easy. She had done that before. Giving up Garrus's? … She didn't know.

A deep breath. A lick of the lips. Neck cracks right, neck cracks left. A little gasp of pain on that second crack. If she lives through this, that vertebra is going to need some reconstruction. "I'm sorry Garrus," she whispered, eyes shut tight, face squished. "I'm so, so, sorry".

Eyes open and gaze locks on the green beam. Synthesis. So that this will never, ever happen again. "I'm sorry Garrus!," she screamed in agony as she collapsed to the floor, and endeavored to crawl towards the beam, her shattered right hand pulling her along the alien tile. The green light changes to his face. His eyes, peering at her, one open, the other through his sniper monocle. He wouldn't want it like this. She didn't want… She stood up. It took her about thirty seconds longer than she thought possible, and she had once been dead for two years. Not that she remembered it… she chuckled. Last time she was surprised by it. This time, she would go down like a champion.

"Garrus," she said calmly, tears openly streaming down her face, dropping off of her chin and mixing with the red gore below, "I love you. I'm sorry. But, I know you'll understand".

She ran. Sprinted, into the beam. Strength exploded out of her poor broken body like Hercules's transformation into a god and she knew she had made the best possible choice. As she hit the beam, she felt a sense of serenity she only felt when she was with him. She noticed his arms wrapping around her. Those arms she enjoyed kissing whenever he flexed, to make fun of him and also tell him how she cherished him. "Garrus, my love. I'm so sorry. I love you. I'm so sorry," she chanted as she nuzzled into his chest. He was so surprisingly warm without armor. His chest so solid, yet soft. His talons stroked her hair. It was down? Of course it was down. They were in bed. She was going to sleep. It was bedtime.

"Shhhh. It's fine. It's going to be alright. I love you too. I love you always," he whispered back to her. The rhythmic brushes of her hair, the beat of his words, the sweet caress of puffs of air on her forehead; they all fell into perfect sync as she smiled despite herself. She was home. Safe. In the arms of her love.

Commander Shepard drifted off into a peaceful slumber.


	2. Chapter 2: Computations

Chapter 2.

"I don't understand, we're flying in the wrong direction". Garrus Vakarian said as he strolled into the cockpit of the Normandy SR2. His sniper rifle was still strapped to his back, and he hadn't had time to clean his armor yet. He looked like hell, but physically, he hadn't sustained much injury in the final assault. An unexpected outcome, given the sheer number of banshees they had been forced to deal with. No, his physical body was fine. His mind was another matter. That was in pain. "Joker. Shepard's in there. We should be going towards the Citadel instead of away from it, and you know that. What's your plan?" He cocked his head to the side and continued his query, former C-Sec officer training radiating through his eyes. "You do have a plan, don't you?"

Joker's face turned down towards the floor, not even pausing to make eye contact with EDI on the way down. He never did that. If he turned his head to the right, he looked for her eyes. Or, her boobs. Something. Not this time. This time his eyes went from straight ahead, ignoring Garrus completely, to down at the floor. "I'm following orders. You know her better than all of us, you have to know she gave me orders".

Garrus moved closer to Joker's chair, talons gripping the fabric just above his shoulders. "Since when are you a man who follows orders to the letter? Try again".

Joker sat up tall in his chair, eyes locked on Garrus's, sneer of pain scarring his face. "Since always! Do you think I like the fact that we're flying away from her while she's on a ticking time bomb? Last time she died she did it to save me, and I can't do the same thing for her".

Garrus bowed his head as he turned away, knowing that was the truth. He walked two steps left, walked two steps right, and then was distracted by a flash of light from outside the window. "What was that?" It didn't look like any laser gun he had ever seen. And he knew big guns.

"It appeared to be a piece of... computer code floating through space in our general direction," replied EDI, who had stayed out of the drama until that moment. Though her voice was generally grounded, there was a note of perplexion in her tone that scared the shit out of Garrus. EDI is the fastest, smartest AI in the world and she has no idea what that was. That's a bad sign.

"What the shit!" Yelled Joker as more streaks of bright green light began to zoom past, shaking the ship and nearly knocking Joker forwards, out of his chair. It was coming from behind them. Garrus ran towards the back of the ship, slamming the door to navigation open and vaulting through the holographic map. What the hell was firing at them? Who? He rushed down the stairs to the starboard observation deck where he found a hapless Kaiden Alenko transfixed by what was going on outside of the window. It did look like computer code. The streams of light bent around in ninety degree angles, numbers and letters in languages unknown flowing through them, but distinct to the eye. If it hadn't been so terrifying and problematic, it would have been beautiful. For someone accustomed to watching countless calibrations all day long, it was a revelation in mathematical brilliance. But, it was trying to kill them, so it had to die. Calculus.

Alenko was frozen in wonder, being completely useless, so Garrus took a moment to assess the situation and tred to look past the beams. The Citadel. The beams were coming from the Citadel. Some of them were going in all different directions. The Crucible had fired. Spirits, she had done it. They had done it. It was over. Except that it wasn't, because beams of computational death were about to engulf the ship. He noticed that the speed of the ship had been growing steadily faster since he left Joker and EDI, and that they were beginning to outrace the beams. Where were they going? He scanned the visible stars and... goddamnit. The relay. They were escaping. That was the exact opposite of what he wanted them to be doing.

"Joker, EDI, now would probably be an excellent time to go back and get her before the entire Citadel explodes," he shouted into the comm, "This might be our only chance". Kaiden awoke from his horror and caught Garrus's eye. Garrus could tell that he had already given up. "I won't give up on her, Joker, she didn't give up on you".

Instead of Joker, EDI replied, the cool rationality back in her voice. "Not only would that be against our orders, Commander Vakarian, but the beam is not firing at us. We happen to be in the line of fire. Commander Shepard is the one who set off the Crucible. All of the beams heading towards the Reapers are exponentially smaller than this one". Another glance out the window confirmed that her analysis was correct, per usual. The beams heading towards the Reapers, not to mention Earth and Mars, entire planets full of people, were miniature compared with what was chasing them. Which would not be something Shepard would do. She wasn't going to juice up the guns and point them at her own ship. The spirits knew that husks weren't going to fire the Crucible because he was fairly certain that they didn't have the mental capacity, so, yes. Something was up. The Illusive Man? No. Even he wasn't that insane. Was he?

"The beam apparently chasing us seems to be heading directly for the Mass Relay. Its trajectory is nearly identical to our own. We are too close to it. If we do not jump before the beam hits, we will face destruction along with the Relay. It's our only means of self-preservation," EDI finished, and Garrus understood. She was exploding the Relays. They were Reaper tech. They always had been. Just as the Citadel had been Reaper tech, and, who knows? The Crucible probably was too. Everything was Reaper tech. The Normandy was probably Reaper tech. Actually, since Cerberus built it, the thing probably was. Damn.

That's when the true problem dawned on him. "EDI. One question. If Shepard explodes the relay, is there a way to go back and retrieve her?"

The comm fell silent.


	3. Chapter 3: Decoding

**Chapter 3.**

Now, his body hurt. Badly. That was not the smoothest landing he had ever experienced. Nor, was it the worst. After all, there were those couple of times that Shepard let Wrex drive the Mako. Somehow, that krogan was always attracted to the highest mountains possible, and would do flips off of them, because that was particularly manly and krogan, or something like that. What good times. All things considered, which weren't limited to just a malfunctioning navigation and an exploding Mass Relay, Joker had done exceptionally well. Garrus attempted to stand, and realized that he was pinned underneath something. It was a shelf. Where was he? He must have been knocked out. His eyes came into focus with the blinking lights of the ship. A room with no windows. Yet, his eyes were adjusting particularly rapidly. Odd. He had always been able to see in the dark proficiently, but this rate of change was especially impressive. Must be adrenaline. He wiggled his back and deduced that this was a shelf on top of him. Right, he had hidden underneath Shepard's desk in the final impact. Was it the safest, or most intelligent place to hole up? No. But he had been in their bedroom, and it's where he ended up. Finally, he endeavored to get up, laboredly pushing the shelf off of his shoulders. Off flew the glass cage, the hamster nowhere in sight. Oh, space hamster. He never understood Shepard's obsession with that little rodent.

Shepard. Spirits, where was Shepard? What had happened?

His thoughts began to align. They were flying away from the Mass Relay because it was going to explode because Shepard fired the Crucible thus attacking the Mass Relay. Why? Unsure. She must have had a good reason. That's when he noticed that his thoughts were following a strange sort of pattern. He had always been a fairly logical man, driven occasionally by revenge or a zest for heroics, but who isn't on occasion. This was different, though. It was almost as if he was viewing the world around him in a grid. A spreadsheet. Things added up a more coherently and more quickly than they should. Why was he thinking like this? Since when did he use the word "thus" in his thought patterns? He had to get out of this ship.

Stepping over some puddles of water and dead fish, he tried to open the door to exit their chambers. Her chambers. Shepard. Locked, barred, or broken. Door didn't work. He stepped over to the comm. "EDI? Are you there? Could you open the door to let me out, I'm stuck in the Captain's chambers".

"Negative, Commander Vakarian. I'm unsure if I am able to do that as of now. Wait, let me try a workaround," she replied. Her voice sounded changed. It wasn't the lack of surety that he experienced in her when they were surrounded by the computer code. This was something different entirely. She sounded... less mechanical. The timbre was different. Her musicality altered. The door slid open. "Successful attempt. Come on out, Garrus". She called him Garrus. EDI had never called him Garrus to his face. Things were a bit odd around here today.

Not only that, but the room was now completely bright. The switch, though he had already noticed that it had begun a few minutes ago, was subtle enough that he hadn't recognized how far it had come. There were actually no lights on in this room now. The few flickering bulbs had shone their last, and now sat dormant in their fixtures, yet Garrus could see everything. He raised his hands to rub at his eyes, and pulled them away in surprise. His eyes felt different. They felt hard. Cold. He ran into the bathroom and peered at himself in the mirror. Perhaps they had been hit by the beam after all. His eyes glowed an eery bright green, and through the irises swam the same type of computational patterns that he and Alenko had watched through the windows of the starboard observation deck. But it didn't stop there. The green was running through his scar tissue as well. It was most likely running under all of his skin, but under the scar tissue, it was vibrant, vivid, unmasked by layers of thick plating. Tiny signals pulsing, coursing throughout his being. And they were changing him. Though he had escaped the final assault shockingly unharmed, he had sustained a small bullet graze on his forehead. Nothing serious. Shallow wound. Just a few layers of skin off, a little blood. He had applied medigel immediately and wasn't the last concerned about it. He had forgotten, honestly, until this minute. Medigel was the best. With the undercurrents of green, the wound shone, but not in a static sort of way. The wound... it was closing. He held himself up with both arms, hands wrapped around the sink for support , as he witnessed his computer code fixing itself. The processors tying him back together.

His computer code? What? "I have to get downstairs," he said to himself, as he splashed himself with some water, and stomped through the door. He didn't hurt anymore. Anywhere.

Thank the spirits, the elevator functioned. As he rode it down, he was reminded of more moments with Shepard and Urdnot Wrex. That big lug. Somehow, it was easier to think about Wrex than Shepard right now. Wrex was probably fine. Killing him was a task suited to few, even reapers. He was a force to be reckoned with. So was Shepard, but she was a squishy human. Delicate. He hated thinking about her as delicate because she was such an excellent commander and soldier, but when he held her in his arms and felt her skin, she was the most...

Ding! The elevator stopped, and broke his train of thought. It was probably better that way. He rushed out of the elevator and ran smack into someone. His concentration scatter from remembering making love to Shepard to facing the harsh realities of the moment had left him shaken and unaware.

"Keelah, Garrus, we just crash landed, it's not an emergency evacuation," Tali attempted a joke, lifting herself off the floor, her back turned. As she turned around, she could see that he joke had not merely flopped, it had traumatized poor Garrus. His green eyes spoke of another emergency evacuation. One that had not gone very well. Wait, green eyes?

"Tali. You don't have your mask on," Garrus said softly as he accepted her outstretched hand and stood up. He had never seen her without the mask. No one had, at least not on their crew, anyway. She was stunningly gorgeous. Soft purple skin, and glowing green eyes, like his own. This seemed to be a trend.

"Yes, well, it got cracked in the impact, something I didn't know was a possibility. I was down in engineering like usual, and I got thrown over a railing. I'm a silly bosh'tet. I took it off to quickly replace it with my spare and found that I could breathe normally. That shouldn't be able to happen, but it is, so... I left it off. The atmosphere of this planet must be safe. Do I look okay?" She blushed, but instead of pink, like Shepard's cheeks turned at a blush, her skin filled with the iridescent green, computations under her very skin.

"Have you looked in a mirror lately?" he asked quizzically, referencing the green, but realizing a second too late that he probably came off like an asshole as her pretty face filled with an ashamed scowl. "No! I mean... your face is... very nice and your courage to show it is...uh... very impressive. You're pretty Tali. Congratulations. But, you're also green, but it's okay because I'm green too. I don't know why. But we're green. Like computers".

"What do you mean that we're..." Tali trailed off as she turned and saw herself in the reflective paneling of the ship. Her eyes were bright green. Her cheeks glowed green. Her suit was infused with green. "Oh Keelah..."

They were interrupted by a sound from the cockpit. Garrus and Tali turned to one another as they heard the sounded again. It sounded like a holler, but as opposed to one of pain, as they had become so depressingly accustomed to lately, it was one of joy. Ding! Liara and Javik stepped out of the elevator, into the navigation area, exchanging odd glances with the two crewmates already there as they heard the sound again, much more coherent this time, clearly Joker's voice, followed by three beautiful words, "EDI. You're real!"

"Yes, Jeff. It seems that the transformation we have undergone did not just add programming to your system, it modified mine as well. You now work off of much more functional, logical parameters, and I seem to have acquired the physical trait your species refers to as, "flesh," which is an intriguing development".

"Shit, EDI, I need to kiss you," Joker cheered, as the four now turned to one another with smiles of combined joy and awkwardness.

"Humans," Javik piped in with a shake of his head.

"Perhaps we should allow them some time together in the, uh, cockpit," Liara suggested, cringing a little at her own unintentional double entendre, and then smiling at the idea anyway. "Garrus, Tali, I'm relieved to see that you're okay. After reviewing my Shadow broker files, I believe that EDI is correct. The beam that chased us through the relay transformed us, and we are now a combination of organic and synthetic. It's fascinating".

"We're both organic and synthetic. How does that work? Is that like how they rebuilt Shepard? What is it?" asked Garrus, who had reached a similar conclusion, but lacked the scientific lingo to put it how Liara had... put it. Sometimes he wondered who sounded more like a computer, Liara or EDI. He guessed that now they all would.

"I believe so. But I'm not actually sure, you see, there are no known studies of this type of technology, which I can only assume is some manner of reaper tech that Shepard was able to repurpose for her own goals. Why she turned us all into halflings, I'm not sure," Liara responded, looking less confident than her words assured. And her words were not all that confident.

"It was the Crucible," Javik said with confidence, "In my cycle, when we began to build the Crucible, the explanation was that it would bring an everlasting peace to the universe. My people were not a peaceful race, and we were less interested in this than a destruction of those that attempted to obliterate us. Shepard is different. If she taught me one thing being on this crew, it is that all species can work together to make something work, including organic and synthetic".

"Beautifully put, Javik, and if the Reaper's main goal was to erase organic life because it would always clash with synthetic life, by blending the two together... that problem ceases to exist" finished Liara.

"Damn. That was a smart explanation," Garrus said, marveling in how shockingly open minded Javik had just sounded. Javik! Full of rage Javik! If anyone in the galaxy was more motivated by revenge and a desire to rid evil from the world, it was him, and he had just sounded like a bad children's vid. This was odd. Very odd.

Just when he thought it couldn't possibly get more odd, the sounds from the other room changed. Moans. Definitely moans. "Time to get off this ship," Garrus motioned to the others to follow him out the door, which unfortunately moved them closer to the enthusiastic noises from behind the closed door. "I don't want to think about that right now," he said, and turned to the others. "You won't need your gear out here. We're machines now".

He popped open the door and viewed... paradise. Lush, tropical trees, spanning the spectrum of greens from forests to chartreuses, with leaves gargantuan similar to the "palms" Shepard promised to show him on Earth one day. Shepard. Flowers of eye-catching purples, pinks and oranges decorated the landscape, and framed the beach with utter perfection. Beach! Everything was beach, strewn with bright shells that caught and reflected light into thousands of prismatic patterns across the sand and nearby waters. The waters themselves were a gorgeous aquamarine, clearly pure water. Stacks of round black rocks brought a zen sort of quality to the scene, and Garrus wondered if they had developed naturally, or if they were placed there by a sentient species. Or perhaps an animal. A species that had not yet arisen. Small aquatic creatures of all kinds frolicked along the coastline and in the shallow depths. Miniature mammalians attempted to catch fish-like creatures with rainbow metallic scales. No other beings, as far as the eye could see. All was quiet. Crashing waves and an animal noise every few moments, but all of them relaxing. Rejuvenating. This really was paradise.

It was everything he had hoped to find after this battle. Everything except her.


	4. Chapter 4: A Piece of Cake

Chapter 4.

"This food is impressively delicious, Jeff. Eating is a significantly more pleasant experience that I had previously surmised. What's the name of it, again?" asked EDI as the crew sat around the campfire at dinner.

"Chef Boyardee. It's an Earth classic. It never expires so we'll have it forever, " Joker replied.

EDI looked off into the distance at the violet hues of the setting sun, fuzed with orange streaks. This planet truly was gorgeous. Uninhabited, but stunning. Just their luck that they had crash-landed on an uninhabited planet, though. Actually, it wasn't much like their luck at all. Their luck was exceptional. The number of suicide missions they had been on, the vast arrays of enemies they had faced, the sheer amount of Relay jumps the ship had survived, the reapers they had fought, the Cerberus teams they had shot down... no. Their luck was ridiculous. In the best way. This was not like their luck. They were alive, which was much more coherence with their entropy profile, but the lack of intelligent lifeforms was truly problematic.

The Normandy wasn't functioning. It was functioning enough to keep the lights on, provide shelter, and run the medical bay and the kitchen, but flying? No. Guns? Definitely not. EDI, Tali, Adams, Daniels and Donnelly had been spending every minute of their time fixing the ship to the best of their ability, but, even at their most optimistic calculations, they were weeks away from even getting off the ground. Liara had been in contact with off-world engineers through her Shadow Broker tech, but they had been of little help. The Normandy recreation was a Cerberus vessel, and Cerberus was gone. Completely and utterly gone. No one with Cerberus ties had been heard from, including Miranda and Jacob. That didn't mean that they were dead- communication was... bad, frankly. The Relays had helped focus the extranet across the universe, and without them, contact between systems was slow and terribly unreliable. Ships couldn't jump, and there was absolutely zero timeline on the repairs of the relay system. If there were scientist who fully understood how the technology worked, no one was sure. Though it was assumed that, like all other life, the Reapers had been transformed into a combination organic-synthetic type of lifeform, sightings of them had been few. They had retreated. Where? No one was sure. But, they would need to come back.

EDI stretched her legs. Sore. Something she hadn't experienced before a week ago. Sore and tired, another new sensation. Sleeping and stretching had become a part of her routine now, whereas before, they were something she had studied in great depth, attempted to mimic for a week or so in an attempt to prove to Jeff that she was real enough for him, and then abandoned when she came to the realization that he didn't give a shit. This time, she had been sitting cross-legged for too long, and needed to shift herself. As she did, she remembered to shift her skirt as she stood up. Victory. She kept forgetting about that, clothes never having been a necessity before either. At least this one was cute- she was about the same size as Liara, so the asari had been sharing her wardrobe. Sharing clothes was surprisingly fun, and felt like something out of a human chick flick vid. And she had done it. Her life had changed in the blink of an eye. In that one little blackout, she had gained soreness, hunger, tiredness, a need for modesty, and an expiration date. Oh, and the ability to make physical love to Jeff. That part made it all worth it.

She did a few forward bends, to Joker's delight, and then lay down on the ground next to him, ankles crossed, arms above her, with her head resting in her hands. He slowly lowered himself until he mimicked her position. The sun ducked below the surf as the bright glow of the fire illuminated her shiny skin. Skin. She had skin. His mind was caught with the intense longing to kiss it over, and over, as he had the past few days. Caress her, now that she could truly feel it. Yet, his functions were stuck in another place.

"EDI, have you seen Garrus around at all? I'm worried about him". Joker rolled towards her, resting his head on a rock, before remembering that he could lean on his arm. It wouldn't break. His coding prevented that from occurring any longer. A quick grin floated across his now heavily bearded face. He hadn't shaved since they landed. Said that it made him feel more authentic, and that all he needed now was a volleyball and they would be perfect. EDI didn't understand the reference.

"Negative. I assumed that he was still calibrating the defense system. Would you like me to check on him?" she asked, as she began to rise up off of the ground. He sprung up and tackled her back down, laying a kiss on her cheek before resting his head on her chest. Her squishy, warm chest. God. He wished that it hadn't cost so much to have her here, like this, but when he touched her, he couldn't help but feel thankful for all that had transpired.

"No. I want you right where you are, babe," he nestled his face into her bosom, and she chuckled. Chuckled. Weeks ago, she had a sense of humor, but not this type of response. It was silly to say that he was more in love with her now, he had always loved her, but the gratification of the little noises and movements she now volunteered back to him was overwhelmingly awesome. "I'm just worried about him, you know? He had been beating other people with his ass stick but now I think he's turned it on himself".

"Exclusively. Whenever I use my remote capabilities to check in on him, he is either staring off into the calculations, or sitting in a corner," EDI kissed the top of his head as her face expressed feelings of dismay. They were all worried about Garrus. "I can imagine what he is going through, but my estimates are that my hypothesis is not accurate. It cannot be a great enough value".

"Am I interrupting something?"

"Garrus!" Joker yelled, as he saw their crewmate step over the small hilly outcropping between them and the ship. He vaulted off of EDI, taking note, yet again, of his own shocking ability to run and jump due to his code, and hugged Garrus. Garrus stiffened, his face an obvious mask of surprise, as Joker laughed off the moment, released him, and punched him in the shoulder. "Dude, we haven't seen you in like a week, Commander. How are you doing? How are the guns?"

"The guns are damn screwed. Nothing functions properly, and it will take weeks to get them moderately operational. Then again, as the ship doesn't have the ability to fly, and this planet seems to have no intelligent lifeforms other than our own crew, I highly doubt that we'll be needing them any time soon. Which is unfortunate. I'm working on it," Garrus stared into the fire. The flames leapt about, sucking in the air, as small ashes rained around the pile of wood-like plants, converting into charcoal. The deep crimsons and bright yellows of the fire soothed him slightly, as his face released tensions he didn't realize that he'd been holding. His cheeks. His cheeks were using unnecessary muscular functions. It was possible that they had been for the past few days. Damn.

Garrus looked like shit. It was obvious that he hadn't showered in days, he was ruffled, and his clothes were smelly. None of them sweat as much since the transformation, so that meant it had been quite a few days since his last cleaning. His eyes looked as bloodshot as possible through the green glow, and now, they barely needed any sleep. Three to possibly four hours a night was more than sufficient for the vast majority of the Normandy's occupants, but Vakarian looked as if it had been far fewer hours than that over the past few nights, if he had lain down at all. His face was streaked with chunks of dead skin and salt, also indicative of his lack of showering, but more so of crying.

"We'll get her back, Garrus. She's our Commander. We'll get her back," Joker placed a hand on the turian's shoulder, and squeezed gently. Garrus took his own talon and placed it over Joker's hand as a new wave of tears welled up in his eyes. Garrus never cried in front of people. Never. His father had always seen it as a weakness, and Garrus did too, but in that moment, he didn't give a damn.

EDI rose from her recline and placed her hand on Garrus's other shoulder. "Commander Vakarian, we've beaten less than one percent odds at least seventy nine times since I was installed on this ship. We can beat them again". He gazed into her eyes. Her irises were a vibrant blue, mixed with the green they all shared. The blue was similar to her hair, which instead of cold, solid metal, now cascaded down close to her shoulders, with the bounciness and consistency of human hair. The transformation had somehow understood that she was meant to look human, and had altered her coding such. Since then, EDI had cut her hair to have bands, and they were reminiscent of the ones Shepard liked to wear.

"I just... I don't know how we're going to find her. The odds seem impossible, and I know we've faced impossible odds before, Joker can attest that we saw them hundreds of times before she died the first time, but EDI... I don't know. Hoping is making me crazy," he started to laugh a deep, throaty, gurgly sound, "You know, I sound like a stupid angsty teenager. What I just said reminded me of my military days, or my old C-Sec days before I started chasing Saren. Hmm. I haven't sounded like that since before I met her. She needs to come back".

"That is a distinct possibility. Shepard has returned from the dead before, and her survival instincts are quantifiably ninety six percent better than the majority of sentient beings. She may find out way to us first," EDI stated, backing away from Garrus lightly, a forced smile on her face.

"Yeah, Vakarian, stop acting like such an emo teenager," Joker laughed, punching Garrus in the arm again, a little harder this time, as he retreated and wrapped an arm around EDI's waist.

Garrus looked over the two of them. Joyous. Smiling. Joking. Touching. Joker's hand thoughtfully squeezing the tiny bit of excess flesh over EDI's hipbone. This scenario had worked out perfectly for them. They had found each other, fallen in love, but been unable to fully express it due to her, um, machine-ness, but now, they were essentially the same species. The whole ship knew that they could have sex now, the noises... they were often, and loud, and sometimes over the intercom when the two of them landed on a button. He shuddered at that one. That moment had been awkward. But these two had everything. They were in paradise. The rays of the three moons bounced off of the shells and rocks on the beach to create a landscape of glitter and magic, with rustles of leaves, the cool kiss of the wind and the crackling, everchanging dynamic and heat of the fire. EDI and Joker could laugh, and eat, and touch in the most beautiful place they had probably ever been, undisturbed by the zero other lifeforms. Together. And Garrus was alone. His mate was... somewhere. Maybe.

He had spent the past seven days in the main battery, and had come out only for alcohol and cake. Cake was fantastic. With the inability to consume dextro food a distant past, he had been sampling all of the earth foods Shepard had always raved about, and cake was by far his favourite. It was all doughy, sweet goodness without a side of anaphylactic shock. Perfect. So, with a glass of chardonnay in one hand, and a cake in the other, usually red velvet, he had set on a path of calibrations and self destruction in the way he only knew how. He hadn't been lying when he told them that the guns were screwed- one of the guns had actually fallen off of the ship, and the others had all been smashed on impact, or affected when EDI's code was converted. How exactly and to what extent she maintained connection to the functionalities of the ship, no one was quite certain, including EDI herself, and redesigning these processes without that information was damn hard to do. Garrus was a professional, though, so in between boughts of anger, reading numbers, fixing valves, punching the shit out of the valves, eating a piece of cake, fixing the valves again, drinking a glass, weeping silently, doing calculations, sitting in a corner, and eating more cake, he had made excellent progress.

But damn these two. They were ecstatic, and made happy by an event that had ruined him for the past two weeks. They didn't know how to get back to the Citadel. They didn't know where the Citadel was, if it was anywhere. Hell, they didn't know where they were. They weren't even sure what system they were on, let alone what planet. It could even be an uncharted system. The Relay was hit by the beam as they went through, which fried their nav computers, and dropped them here. On a beach. Paradise. Maybe, they were dead. Maybe, this was all a dream. He pinched himself to check. Because if this was a dream, he was probably knocked out in a hospital somewhere, next to Shepard. Shepard. Her face kept lingering every time he closed his eyes, willing him away from sleep.

Nope, it was real. That hurt, and he was bleeding. Damn talons. It was that odd green blood they had all leaked since the transformation, moving, lit, and eerie. Code. As it fixed itself, Joker waved his hands in front of him in alarm, "Woah! Woah, Garrus, buddy, go easy on the self-harm there. We know, we know this can't be easy for you but man, you've got to look at the bright side. You're not dead".

With a short snarl, Garrus backed away from the happy couple, and spoke from a grounded, cool, collected place, his normal nature returning. "Damn you. Damn you both. You think it's so easy to look at the bright side, well, look at you! This is the best thing that ever happened to the two of you, isn't it? Here you are, sitting on some damn beach, staring in the eyes of the love of your life, touching, getting... intimate, and you're telling me to go easy? You know what's not easy? Your love dying. Twice. That's what I've had to deal with. That's what led me to become a vigilante. Then, I lost an entire crew. The only reason I was able to come back from that was Shepard magically returning from the dead. So, no. Buddy. I will not go easy. Because, part of me is dead. It went up there, through that beam, into the Citadel with Shepard, and I'm not sure if I can resuscitate it until we can find her. Alive. Until then, don't you dare tell me again to take it easy, or that you "know". You don't know. You can't know. Buddy".

Joker's face froze as he hastily removed his hand from EDI and took a step back. EDI just looked down at the ground. Garrus was right. They had both been thinking about it earlier that very evening. This situation had worked out pretty well for them, other than the loss of Shepard. Clearly, that was a very strong negative, but they had no evidence to suggest that she was anything but alive. Of course, the logic of the situation insisted that she must be dead, but knowing Shepard, that meant nothing. They had no proof to the contrary. But their separation had weighed harder on Garrus than they could have imagined. Garrus played with the blood that was now just a slow trickle out of his arm, where he'd pinched, and shook his head for what felt like the millionth time the past few weeks. "I'm sorry Joker, EDI, I'm under a lot of stress with this whole situation and... I'm very... very sad, and... I miss her. I miss Shepard," Garrus apologized, choosing to look down at the ground and watch his foot shuffle through the sand instead of making eye contact with his friends.

"No damage has been done Commander Vakarian. Before your arrival this evening, we were discussing whether or not you were alright. Your presence and demeanor have answered that query for us, and though, yes, we are generally quite happy, your analysis of the situation is correct. We are your friends, and we are here to provide the support necessary until a decision of how to proceed with her retrieval has been reached, and a plan formulated," EDI now wrapped her arm around Joker's waist and walked towards Garrus, as Liara's form behind him emerged from the shadow.

"Garrus, you've come out of the Main Battery," Liara spoke, her cheeks flushed green from what had been a sprint from the ship.

"Yes, I've emerged from my cocoon of despair, how's your day going," he turned to face her, head first with a little swivel of his body, not taken aback, sarcasm at full capacity.

Liara ignored his tone, and continued on. "There's something you need to see. I've established a com link with Admiral Hackett on Earth. James Vega and his team made it on board The Citadel".


End file.
